At the moment Smith is hiding behind the “leadership team” defence, in a bid to save Bancroft and himself, while there are moves elsewhere to sacrifice Smith and Bancroft. Cricket Australia are setting up “an enquiry” as if one is needed. Isn’t it simple to have quiet word with Bancroft and Smith getting the latter to resign the captaincy and Bancroft to accept a two-match ban. They come away with minimal disgrace if not actual credit and we don’t go through some death by a thousand cuts

Meanwhile, England are pure as the driven, but showing how they got thrashed by Australia

It is awful, this bloody ball-tampering thing. I'm sort of under-the-surface upset about it, but it is bubbling up right now. My preliminary view is that all players involved should be suspended and Darren Lehmann sacked if he was in the 'leadership group', which surely he was. I like the drama of recalling the team and awarding walkovers to South Africa. I'm not sure if that's for the best, or if we just blood some new players. WHAT a disaster.

Damn right. For anyone in *any* government to try to take the moral high ground in something this trivial when they won’t get the important things right is a disgrace. Now I read that Smith and Warner have stepped down from their roles for the rest of the match; I hope they don’t expect things to end there.

Here is an honest and serious question which my husband just laughed at.

Why not just allow ball tampering? Let them make it spiky, shiny, rough, smooth, cover it in glue - whatever. There will be a point at which tampering is no help at all and, if both sides can do it, the playing field is level anyway.

Its just not cricket Boogie. The deterioration of the ball is part of the rhythm of Test Cricket, as is the condition of the pitch and the weather. They could do that in some of the lesser forms of the game that Cricket uses to make money I suppose.

I get the idea that Smith is a little like Ponting. Both are excellent batsmen, automatic choices for the team but to be honest I don't think Punter was much of a captain. After all, he had three all-time greats playing for him; Warne, McGrath and Gilchrist. He wasn't so far off that, the top order was strong and when your third bowler is Brett Lee you hardly need to be much of a captain.

Smith, for all his talent, doesn't have those luxuries. Starc, Hazlewood and Lyon are very good, way too good for England but the rest of his XI just doesn't compare. I'm not surprised they do stupid things with the expectation put upon them.

Sentences have been handed down and they are pretty severe: Smith & Warner banned for a year and Bancroft for nine months. I’m surprised that Lehmann hasn’t been sanctioned in some way for allowing this to take place. In any case I reckon his days are numbered

Sentences have been handed down and they are pretty severe: Smith & Warner banned for a year and Bancroft for nine months. I’m surprised that Lehmann hasn’t been sanctioned in some way for allowing this to take place. In any case I reckon his days are numbered

I didn't think they were numbered like that! Darren Lehmann has announced he will leave his post at the end of the Test series. He looks genuinely upset, disappointed, the lot. I feel for the guy.

Still, no one is going to do anything more than clean a ball then polish it for some time. I expect umpires will pay rather more attention to the ball being bounced into old wickets to roughen the surface too. Not sure it will put an end to "reverse swing" but it may have some effect.

Yeah, I think the whole episode will be seen as good for cricket as early as next summer. I also think that Smith's reputation and career will recover. Even Sir Shane served a suspension for something or other, and we still would have given him a knighthood if we could (don't talk to me about that fool of a PM Tony Abbott).

Looks like Australia are trying to make amends with handshakes at the start of the match. It's but a gesture, but one I don't recall seeing before. South Africa are 313-6 at the end of Day 1, which is level pegging. England are just about level with New Zealand too on 290-8

Gillespie has a good record in Britain, especially for his work with Yorkshire. He has just signed a three-year contract with Sussex and I don't think he will just walk away from that. If he was available I reckon the ACB would have him, not least because he would gather a good support team.

England’s dismal run of Test matches continues. That is eight without a win now and if our batting remains this fragile we will never improve. Moreover our top bowlers don’t have long left and I can’t see replacements for Broad and Anderson.
I’m glad it’s not on terrestrial TV, as it saves me watching it.

England are bowling first and have made a good start but that is usual at Headingley (Leeds). It usually favours bowlers for the first couple of hours and it is one of few pitches where the team that wins the toss might consider (just) batting last. There are three changes to England's team which isn't carrying injuries this time.

Did I say that Headingley is one of the few places where one may consider batting last (and hence bowling first? Having reached lunch at 68-4 (poor) Pakistan lost three wickets while reaching 79-7, recovered to 113-7, whereupon they lose another wicket. James Anderson now has 538 wickets in 138 Test matches.

C'mon England, don't let them get many more but let the pitch dry out a bit to make batting easier (Pakistan have decent bowlers).

England are bowling first and have made a good start but that is usual at Headingley (Leeds). It usually favours bowlers for the first couple of hours and it is one of few pitches where the team that wins the toss might consider (just) batting last.

That is going to make Day 2 very interesting, with England starting off the day facing the Pakistan bowlers.

I got the impression that, late in the day, Pakistan was doing a good job of limiting the runs scored, even if wickets weren't falling. I have no idea if it is a meaningful stat, but I calculate that Pakistan was scoring at the rate of about 3.61746 runs per over, while England clocked in at 2.86485 runs per over. (The more I think about it, in Day 1 of a Test match, that probably is a meaningless stat--it isn't a limited overs contest.)

England are bowling first and have made a good start but that is usual at Headingley (Leeds). It usually favours bowlers for the first couple of hours and it is one of few pitches where the team that wins the toss might consider (just) batting last.

That is going to make Day 2 very interesting, with England starting off the day facing the Pakistan bowlers.

The first hour, while the pitch is still a little damp, could be decisive. Pakistan's bowlers will be going all out while England will be hanging in there.

I got the impression that, late in the day, Pakistan was doing a good job of limiting the runs scored, even if wickets weren't falling. I have no idea if it is a meaningful stat, but I calculate that Pakistan was scoring at the rate of about 3.61746 runs per over, while England clocked in at 2.86485 runs per over. (The more I think about it, in Day 1 of a Test match, that probably is a meaningless stat--it isn't a limited overs contest.)

One reason Pakistan recovered late on was that as the ball gets older it doesn't bounce, swing or move of the pitch so much: in short, it becomes easier to play, hence the Pakistan run rate. When England came out to bat there was (and still is) an awful lot of time left, so after the disaster of the first test, England are going to bat for as long as possible, ideally right through the next two days. which should see them about five hundred ahead (and the Pakistan bowlers out on their feet).

Yay for Scotland! Beating England in an ODI, on a batting friendly surface, says something about the relative strength of the associate nations. I wouldn't have bet against the powerful English batting reaching the target - and they nearly did - but perhaps they were a bit too casual at times. Good for the game, though, I think. Might make England think hard about their bowling attack which appeared to be rather toothless.

I have thought that for some years. Consider the regulations for limited overs cricket:
- Bowlers are severely constrained regarding line and length. Short-pitched bowling is discouraged, even penalised. Then again, it's possible, with some bottle, practice and a good eye, to score a lot of runs very fast if the bowling isn't directed at the stumps! I couldn't hook the ball but I could sweep the ball down to fine leg ("don't try to hit the ball too hard!") and play a fine hoick to cow corner.
- There are restrictions on field placing. What is crazy is that some of these are, supposedly to make the game "more realistic". My best captain always kept at least one slip in, firstly because we had a very good slip fielder but mostly to discourage "driving without due care".
- Boundaries are far shorter than they used to be: on many grounds back in the sixties and into the seventies there were no boundary ropes. You didn't get a boundary until the ball reached or passed the boundary of the field of play. I suppose this is reasonable to look after players safety.

Then again, bowlers (and fielders) can make mistake after mistake, but if a batter makes a single error, that's it. I'd definitely restrict the weight of bats though.

I was at Chester-le-Street for the 4th ODI, and it was good fun. But, the game didn't seem balanced; batsmen were definitely at an advantage as the white ball didnt really swing or spin, and the fielding restrictions mean that picking off singles was relatively straighforward, with plenty of boundaries on offer. Australia didn't really bat that well and still reached 310!

There's no need for the boundaries to be quite so short though - they are several yards in from the advertising hoardings. Some hits that went for 6 probably wouldn't even have a four on my home ground (though some were admittedly absolutely massive).

On the other hand, good batting tracks and high scores means that spectators get a full days play and quite a bit of excitement - so from that point of view batting friendly conditions make sense.

The fifth ODI with Australia was definitely the most exciting match of the series, and the balance between bat and ball was more even. Jos Buttler's match-winning innings was quite outstanding, by any standards. He's special. One of the best in the world.

Time and balls remaining weren't an issue so Buttler was able to play himself in and play carefully. Once he's in though, as Barnabas62 suggested, he sees it like a beachball and hits hits it like a baseball. In form, you can't bowl at him. In attitude he really does remind me of Sir Viv: carefully applied violence.

It's something that England haven't been great at recently - pacing themselves when they don't need a vast run rate, and consequently getting themselves into bother. Obviosuly they are supremely confident when batting, and rightly so, but if this last match means they learn to temper their aggression on occasion, that will make them a better side.

ODI, Kuldeep Yadav does 6-25 in 10 overs. Even as a novice, I know that is pretty good!

It's clear that India are in an entirely different class! England might win the odd game but India are a lot smarter than Australia and the IPL gives their players a great background for high-pressure limited overs cricket. To compare it to Football, Australia are like Sweden, lacking penetration, while India are like Croatia.